What has (and hasn’t) changed since the Anita Hill case

The 1991 Clarence Thomas senate hearings are the subject of a new film

More than two decades after Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas, the number of such charges has remained virtually unchanged. But amid a more sexualized media culture and with innovations in technology, lawyers say it’s the nature of sexual harassment cases that’s changed.

A new documentary film, “Anita: Speaking Truth to Power,” released March 21, revisits the case. As a young law professor in 1991, Hill testified before the all-white, all-male Senate Judiciary Committee about her alleged sexual harassment by Thomas — then a Supreme Court Judge nominee — when he was chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Despite the allegations, Thomas became a Supreme Court Judge in October 1991. Interviewed in the film, Hill, 57, said many cases still go unreported. Most of the time, she said, victims “will look for a better job.”

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Attorney Anita Hill poses for a portrait during the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 18, 2013 in Park City, Utah.

The hearings put sexual harassment on the national agenda and led to an increase in the number of harassment lawsuits, experts say. And that number has remained nearly constant ever since. There were 10,532 sexual harassment cases in 1992, the year after the Hill-Thomas Senate hearings, versus 10,730 last year. The number of cases peaked at 15,889 in 1997. “Was there a problem with sexual harassment? Yes. Is it still a problem? Yes. “Did Anita Hill put it on the radar? Absolutely,” says Jennifer Drobac, professor of law at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.

With increased understanding about what constitutes sexual harassment, more men have filed cases too. The proportion of men filing suits has nearly doubled, from 9.1% of all sexual harassment charges in 1992 to 17.8% in 2013, according to the EEOC. Cases in recent years have often involved men sexually harassing other men, even involving physical assaults. But “until companies make sure that there is no stigma for reporting sexual harassment, we’ll continue to see men letting it go without reporting it, says Donna Ballman, an attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and author of the book “Stand Up for Yourself Without Getting Fired.”

There are rare cases where men allege sexual harassment by women. Last week, a jury in Galveston, Texas, awarded $567,000 (including lost wages and benefits) to policeman James Gist, who filed suit at the 122nd Judicial District Court in Galveston. He alleged that his boss, then-constable Pam Matranga, held his face against her breasts and made derogatory comments of a sexual nature. (The suit was taken against Galveston County, not Matranga personally.) The total compensatory damage sought during final arguments was $350,000, but the jury awarded $500,000, according to Anthony Griffin, attorney for Gist.

Matranga disputes the allegations. Police officers’ sense of humor is often on the crude side, she told MarketWatch, “probably as a safety mechanism for things dealt with daily.” She says people can’t participate in that behavior, and then claim to be offended. Gist says the talk was directed at him in a “non-stop continuous barrage of those types of comments. I told her at one point, ‘That’s not locker room humor. It’s humiliating, offensive and unwanted.’”

So why has the number of cases not been reduced through workplace training on sexual harassment prevention? “I’ve noticed a trend with the level of aggression,” Sharpe says. “It used to progress over time, but now they go from zero to 60 quite quickly.” People in big cities in particular may be desensitized to sexually aggressive behavior, she adds. The level and acceptance of sexual innuendo on television and around the water cooler is one reason, says Robin Shea, partner with the law firm Constangy, Brooks & Smith in Winston-Salem, N.C. “That was not nearly as extensive in the 1990s as it is now,” she says.

Earlier this month, for instance, Christina Young, 36, filed a sexual harassment suit in the Manhattan Supreme Court, alleging that her colleagues at executive compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners in New York routinely talked about erections, oral sex and masturbation; one colleague allegedly read erotica out loud, while another simulated sexual intercourse with a chair, according to her claim. In a statement to MarketWatch, Nora McCord, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, says, “The allegations are completely false and we have full confidence that we will be vindicated.”

And recent high-profile cases in the military may have led to an increase in the number of reports of sexual harassment — perhaps like the Anita Hill case did in 1991. Cases of unwanted sexual conduct in the military rose to 26,000 in 2012 from 19,000 in 2010, according to a 2013 Pentagon survey. Reports of military sexual assaults surged to more than 5,000, a rise of 50% year-over-year from October 2013 to September 2014, according to the Department of Defense. (Earlier this month, the U.S. Army said it suspended a top prosecutor who supervises sexual-assault cases over allegations of groping a female soldier at a conference on sexual harassment.)

What’s more, cyberbullying at work has become a problem just like in schools, and has made sexual harassment cases even more egregious in recent years, says Marjorie M. Sharpe, lead counsel at Phillips & Associates in New York. The cliché of a male boss chasing his secretary around the desk has been replaced by sexually explicit jokes and comments on social networks, texts and emails with inappropriate images, she says. “It never ceases to amaze me the type of sexual harassment that comes across my desk,” she adds. “You wouldn’t believe the type of things people exchange over emails.” That, Sharpe says, includes pornography, videos and even certain body parts.

But one thing that hasn’t changed much since the Anita Hill case: Victims fear their character will be put on trial, Sharpe says. One 2011 study carried out by Langer Research Associates found that one in four women — a far greater proportion than the EEOC data suggests — and one in 10 men said they experienced sexual harassment at work. “The probability of being hired by another employer becomes more difficult after filing a case,” she adds, particularly during tougher economic times when it’s harder to find another job. “Anita Hill told her story to the world and she was judged by many people for it. Clarence Thomas came out virtually unscathed.”

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